How to use Gamification to Maximize User Engagement

Engaging with users and creating long-term loyalty is a real challenge.

We have to work hard at it. Have you ever thought about giving your users something that is beneficial to them if they engage with your content?

Have you ever thought about building a relationship with your users so they feel obliged to return?

If so, here are some helpful ways that will help you engage your users and keep them loyal:

Rewards

Rewards fuel motivation. They incentivize us to carry out certain actions that we may not have done otherwise.

So why not use rewards to excite your users? Why not unexpectedly give them something that will make them feel good and help them build positive perceptions of your brand?

Let’s go over some ways that you can encourage and motivate your users to engage with your company, product or website.

Points and Badges:
By using points and badges users will feel motivated to succeed. These outward rewards are indicators of accomplishments, skills, qualities and interests. They encourage participation of users as people want to show off their knowledge and skills to other people.

Badges in particular are a great way to help with brand recognition and increase user loyalty. People like to showcase their achievements – and by sharing their badges they are associating themselves with your brand. They feel good about their accomplishment and are likely to feel loyalty towards you.

By earning a badge you feel like you have achieved something valuable, something that will travel with you and something that will make you feel proud.

In-game currencies, Rewards & Discounts:

Discounts drive engagement and loyalty. Naturally we all love discounts and deals.

If you were to receive an amazing deal on a shoe website, the likelihood is that the next time you want to buy a pair of shoes you will return to that same website.

Providing your users with discounts can help you build a bond with them. Discounts will make your users feel good and encourage them to return.

You will also find that your users are willing to engage with your brand via social media- they will be happy to share your content or like your Facebook page if you are giving them something in return. Its a win win situation.

Captain Up is a perfect example of how you can implement a reward system to nurture loyal engaged users.

Captain Up allows you to create missions for your users in which they have to accumulate points and badges as they go along. Using badges at certain milestones will make your audience feel motivated and eager to collect a whole set.

You can also reward your users for being social, which will encourage them to engage with your content and share it on different social media platforms. As they share it they are building a connection with your brand.

Online course and Tutorials

Online courses are great at creating engaging online experiences for your users. They make people take action, and this is exactly what you want them to do.

Before you create an online course, you need to know exactly what you want your users to learn from the course, and exactly how you want them to engage with it. Without setting real performance goals the experience will not be meaningful to your users.

Make sure that your course is relevant to your users. You want to draw upon their prior knowledge, test them and encourage them to promote their success when they have taken part.

It’s important to remember that different people will come to the course with different levels of knowledge. You need to accommodate these different levels so that you don’t have people feeling that it was either too boring, or too difficult and demotivating.

The online courses that you create must be interactive. There is no point simply asking your users to read a text or watch a video. The point is that they engage. Give them the chance to use the information they are learning to spark discussions and ask questions.

Ask your users how they are finding the course. Not only is this feedback incredibly valuable to you, but it shows them that you care and that you are there to help them.

The point of your course is that people engage with it, promote it on social media channels, and instigate discussions about the content. None of this will happen if the course is not visually appealing. You need to keep them interested.